Also on today’s menu:
Special Meeting To Address Default Budget Error
Recycling Facility Indicted For Falsifying Records
New Hampshire State Police responded to a multiple-vehicle crash in Ashland on January 25 after Elizabeth Bourbeau, 40, of Laconia, driving a 2020 Chevy Equinox, struck a guardrail on Interstate 93, causing the vehicle to spin around in the roadway. A 1996 Peterbuilt, hauling woodchips and operated by Scott Shields, 68, of Campton, struck Bourbeau’s vehicle, then crashed into a 2011 Ford F-150 operated by Jeffrey Dulude, 56, of Attleboro MA.
When first responders arrived shortly after 11 a.m., they found the three vehicles scattered along both northbound lanes at mile marker 76 and Bourbeau had sustained life-threatening injuries. The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Advanced Response Team helicopter took her to Concord Hospital for treatment. Both Shields and Dulude were uninjured.
In addition to State Police from Troop F, members of Ashland Fire-Rescue, Ashland Police Department, New Hampton Police Department, New Hampshire Department of Transportation, and New Hampshire State Police Troop G were at the crash scene.
Discussion: The reason Bourbeau crashed into the guardrail remains under investigation. The pavement was wet but clear at the time.
Special Meeting To Address Default Budget Error
The Newfound Area School Board will hold an emergency meeting today to act on an error in the default budget that voters will consider during the school district’s February 3 deliberative session.
Earlier this week, the school board unanimously opposed the budget committee’s proposed operating budget of $27,356,812. If voters defeat that warrant article, the district would operate under a default budget that would keep spending at the current level, with adjustments for one-time expenditures and contractual obligations. That figure was calculated to be $27,666,434.
Business Administrator Robin Reinhold said that calculation failed to include the $100,050 increase voters approved last year to cover the cost of preserving a teaching position that was to have been eliminated in order to fall within the district’s tax cap. Because that position is an ongoing expense and not a one-time expenditure, it should have been included in the default budget calculation. The new figure that the school board will be reviewing is $27,766,484.
Discussion: Voters made it clear when they overrode the district’s tax cap last year that they wanted to keep that teaching position. The error in the default budget calculation was based on using the original budget figure rather than the amended amount. Citizens attempted to place petitioned articles on this year’s warrant to eliminate the tax cap or raise it from 2 percent to 3 percent, but the petitions did not carry enough signatures from registered voters to make it onto the warrant. Defeating the budget committee’s proposal would provide more money for school district operations.
Recycling Facility Indicted For Falsifying Records
A Grafton County Superior Court Grand Jury has handed up six Class B felony indictments against Hammond Grinding and Recycling Inc., aka F.C. Hammond & Son Lumber Co. of Orange involving solid waste facility violations.
Three indictments allege that, between March 30, 2020, and March 22, 2023, Hammond failed to report that the company exceeded its permit capacity for unprocessed construction and demolition debris. The other three indictments allege that, on March 22, 2023, March 18, 2022, and March 11, 2021, Hammond submitted annual facility reports with false quantities of waste received by the facility and falsely claimed to be in compliance with the terms of its permit.
If convicted, Hammond faces up to a $25,000 fine on each felony charge. Arraignment on the charges is scheduled in the Grafton County Superior Court on February 20.
Discussion: The Department of Environmental Services’ Solid Waste Management Bureau, along with Jim Hodgdon of the New Hampshire Attorney-General’s Criminal Bureau investigated the case, and it is being prosecuted by Senior Assistant Attorney-General K. Allen Brooks and Assistant Attorney-General Melissa Fales of the Environmental Protection Bureau. An indictment is not a finding of guilt, but an independent jury’s decision, after hearing from prosecutors, that sufficient evidence exists to warrant a court trial. It is gratifying that the state is going after smaller companies for solid waste violations; it is less acceptable that the Solid Waste Bureau seems to be supporting, rather than prosecuting, Casella Waste Systems for repeated violations of its permits in Bethlehem.
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